IV

COMMUNISM AND THE
SOVIET CONSTITUTION

BEFORE I went to Russia I imagined that I was
going to see an interesting experiment in a new form
of representative government. I did see an interesting
experiment, but not in representative government.
Every one who is interested in Bolshevism knows the
series of elections, from the village meeting to the
All-Russian Soviet, by which the people's commissaries
are supposed to derive their power. We were told that,
by the recall, the occupational constituencies, and so
on, a new and far more perfect machinery had been
devised for ascertaining and registering the popular
will. One of the things we hoped to study was the
question whether the Soviet system is really superior
to Parliamentarism in this respect.
We were not able to make any such study, because
the Soviet system is moribund.1 No conceivable
1 In Theses (p. 6 of French edition) it is said: "The ancient
classic subdivision of the Labour movement into three forms
(parties, trade unions, and co-operatives) has served its time. The
proletarian revolution has raised up in Russia the essential form
of proletarian dictatorship, the Soviets. But the work in the Soviets,
as in the industrial trade unions which have become revolutionary,
must be invariably and systematically directed by the party of the
proletariat, i,e. the Communist Party. As the organized advanced
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